Thread by @JasonSorens

🚨Mega-🧵 on pending New Hampshire housing & zoning bills, the good, the bad, and the amazing: ⬇️

Huge potential impact from companion bills HB459 and SB84, which would limit municipal minimum lot sizes & free up opportunities for building starter home subdivisions. Under HB459, towns couldn't require more land than needed under DES regs for well and septic on a majority of

land zoned for SFR uses, with only a narrow public health exception. Where you have both water & sewer, it would say you can't require more than 0.5 acres. SB84 says you can't require more than 1.5 acres if no water/sewer on a majority of SFR-zoned land.

If just water, 1 acre. If sewer, 0.5 acre. Neither bill has an explicit preemption provision, so it's not clear what happens if towns don't comply, as has happened with Mass' MBTA Communities Act.

HB631 is a much stronger comeback of a failed bill from last year to allow

MF & mixed-use development on any lot (1) zoned commercial/retail/parking, (2) with water & sewer, & (3) in a town that is part of a Census Bureau urban area. Also restricts dimensional regs on such developments.

HB577 abolishes distinction between attached & detached ADUs in

existing state law. So towns will be required to allow one ADU, either attached or detached, & can't require extra lot size for a detached ADU as under current law.

HB685 legalizes manufactured housing as a permitted use in all residential districts statewide.

HB351, HB309, HB444, HB558, HB628, HB65 would increase regs on landlords in minor ways, potentially causing rents to rise a bit.

HB60 would let landlords evict after a lease expires, potentially causing rents to fall a bit.

HB410 is a sweeping ban on local ordinances that constitute "an extraordinary restriction of residential property."

HB465 makes changes to income verification in low-income units in Housing Opportunity Zones.

HB382 would abolish all parking minimums statewide. 🎉

HB623 bans corporations from buying homes. 🤦‍♂️

HB296 makes building on private roads easier. HB457 cracks down on "unrelated occupancy" regs.

HB342 tackles the problem of zoning stricter than existing density:

"property owners shall be allowed to build on their property without seeking a variance for minimum lot size or percentage of lot coverage if the proposed building conforms to the density of the neighborhood as follows," etc.

HB432 essentially prohibits zoning discrimination against recovery houses.

HB339 lets master plans include agriculture stuff.

HB229 repeals newly enacted power of towns to let their governing boards change zoning. Unclear housing impact.

HB501 lets towns ban 5G towers.

HB92 prohibits people from serving on planning & zoning boards at the same time. Seems reasonable, given role of the latter is to hear appeals from the former!

HB413 amends code enforcement appeal process.

SB91 ends need to reapply for appraisal as a residence in a commercial zone.

SB90 allows high-density residential development on land zoned for commercial uses. Its sparse language makes me think the House equivalent, HB631 discussed above, is in a stronger position.

SB166 increases disclosure requirements of resident-owned communities to their buyers.

SB173 changes appraisal of LIHTC properties in a way likely to reduce their property tax burden somewhat.

SB175 takes lessons from the research of @mnolangray and others on Houston's zoning

politics. It lets munis enforce private covenants but also bans them from requiring private covenants as a condition of development approvals, except for guaranteed-affordable ("workforce" in state statute lingo) developments. Helps covenants be an alternative to zoning.

SB281 eases development on Class VI (locally unmaintained) roads.

SB283 basically says regulators can't include basement area when calculating FARs.

SB284 says residential parking minimums can't be more than 1 space/unit. So less far-reaching than HB382 but still 🔥.

SB282 is statewide single-stair reform for buildings of 4 to 6 stories with certain safety features. 🎉

SB162 bans certain foreign principals from buying land near military installations, & requires everyone to sign affidavits they're not a foreign principal when buying land.

SB163 eliminates local authority to enact building permit caps/moratoria. 🎉

SB174 says planning boards can't discriminate against developments on the basis of the # of bedrooms per unit. I think this could backfire. Some towns have PRD ordinances that give you a density bonus

if you build small homes with <3 bedrooms. This could lead them to abolish PRD ordinances w/ bonuses altogether.

SB27 eases building codes in homes over water.

SB55 is subtle but maybe big. It exempts, for ~6 yrs, larger residential developments from paying the land use change

tax when the owner pulls land out of "current use," a way-below-market assessment that NH offers as an incentive to keep land undeveloped.

SB78 requires you to appeal decisions to the zoning board of adjustment within 30 days.

SB46 lets towns place more requirements on

eligibility for current use. I'm not sure this is a bad thing given current use is such a huge giveaway right now.

SB225 increases towns' reassessment notice requirements.

SB265 would repeal a new state law that basically says towns can't ban religious land uses in any zone.

There are also a bunch of bills that would provide various subsidies to the affordable housing fund or to the Housing Champions program, but they have no direct regulatory impact.

Overall, there is a marked shift in emphasis this session toward opening up land for single-

family development, as opposed to the emphasis in prior sessions on trying to ease multifamily development (no "fourplex bill" this time).

If minimum lot size reform, parking minimum reform, residential in commercial zones, & abolition of building permit moratoria passed, that

would add up to a HUGE package, putting NH at or near the forefront of state-level pro-housing reform.

https://x.com/JasonSorens/status/1884711098936353007